They are two completely different areas, and something that I see very little discussion on.

Sure, I see LOTS of talk about revenues, i.e. six-figure businesses, multi-six-figure businesses, seven-figure businesses, but you never seem to get to the real story behind these headlines – how much profits are they really making? How much of the $100k does the business owner actually get to keep once expenses are paid — that’s the profit!

A six- or even seven-figure business sounds great, but it’s not so great if the profits aren’t there, i.e. you’re only making a $10k profit from a $100k business.

Profits are basically what’s left over (pre-tax or gross) after a business’ expenses have been deducted from its revenues – and this is one area of business that you need to keep a close eye on. So, taking two different scenarios, let’s look at some simple math in determining the profits of a six-figure business and a smaller five-figure business:

You’ve got an angry—no, downright irate—customer in your store. They’re causing a ruckus and clearly making your other customers uncomfortable. What can you do to keep things from spiraling out of control?

How to Deal With an Angry Customer

Plan Ahead

Before this situation ever happens, plan ahead for how to handle it. If your retail store is in an area with a security presence, such as a shopping center, have the phone number for security at the checkout counter or on speed dial, along with the phone number for local police or sheriff.

Train your salespeople to be observant. By greeting customers as they come into the store and keeping an eye on the entire store, they can often spot someone who’s becoming upset. For example, if a long line is forming at the checkout counter, an angry customer might start off by looking angrily at his watch, then start sighing loudly, then pacing and muttering to himself. Reaching out to him with a proactive, “Thank you for your patience today; I’ll be with you as soon as I can,” can help.

Randy Hetrick first noticed counterfeits on Amazon.com Inc. in 2013. He had been selling his TRX Training System– an exercise kit of suspension straps– on the site since 2008. When he began noticing cheap imitations, he had his employees scour Amazon for more, then go through the tedious process of reporting them for removal. But new imposters would pop up right away, and by 2014, “We realized this was an epidemic,” said Hetrick, who estimates phonies cost him $100 million a year, twice his annual sales.

Amazon’s Marketplace gives inventors like Hetrick exposure to hundreds of millions of shoppers without the big expense of building and promoting a website from scratch. Merchants give Amazon a commission on each sale. But a hot-selling product on Amazon encourages counterfeiters to make flimsy knockoffs with cheap materials, steal sales and damage a brand with few consequences.

Fully 24% of Americans have participated in the peer-to-peer or “sharing economy,” according to a new Pew Research report. Which is perhaps bigger than we thought.

Pew counts everyone who’s taken a task on a digital platform (like TaskRabbit), sold something to another community member (eBay), made something and sold it online (Etsy), driven their own cab (Uber), or rented a house (e.g. Airbnb). “These platforms also allow users to earn money in a range of other ways, such as sharing their possessions with others or selling their used goods or personal creations,” it says.

One of the central tenets of the Federal Reserve and most central banks throughout the developed world in the modern era has been their ability to stay above the political fray.

With a few notable — and fairly disastrous — exceptions, the Fed has acted without fear of political retribution from the executive branch, although the chair still has to testify to Congress and the president periodically.

The assumption of independence, however, has come under fire in recent months. After President-elect Donald Trump floated the conspiracy theory that the Fed was intentionally manipulating interest rates to help President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, a hostile congressional questioning of Board Chair Janet Yellen in September, and the possibility of Trump packing the Board of Governors with sympathetic members, it no longer is a given that the Fed will be able to maintain its freedom going forward.

We’re all tempted to use words that we’re not too familiar with. We throw them around in meetings, e-mails and important documents (such as resumes and client proposals), and they land, like fingernails across a chalkboard, on everyone who has to hear or read them.

No matter how talented you are or what you’ve accomplished, using words incorrectly can change the way people see you and forever cast you in a negative light. You may not think it’s a big deal, but if your language is driving people up the wall you need to do something about it.

OH, THANKSGIVING: A time for turkey, a time for uncomfortable political discussions, a time for the most nightmarish airplane trips imaginable. Nearly 30 million Americans will fly with US airlines this week, and a lot of them will be thinking: Hey, at least I’ll come out of this misery with some frequent flier miles for that solo kayaking trip to New Zealand.

Except, not so much. For the first time since frequent flier programs got their start in the 1980s, most American airline passengers are earning rewards in a new way. To put it bluntly, the frequent flier mile is dead.

I am really struggling with balancing ethical consumption with my dreams of financial success. Quite often, getting the most “bang for the buck” for a product involves buying from a company that cuts a lot of ethical corners in terms of their products. […] Looking for some insights into how to balance those concerns.

First of all, let’s look at what ethical consumption actually is. From Wikipedia:

Today I’m going to teach you a very practical marketing skill that I love and use regularly in my own business: teaching a free or low-cost intro class that gives people a taste of you and your offering so they can’t wait to work with you.

And get ready – it’s a long post, but it will walk you through all the steps you need to design a really rocking class.

If you have something interesting to teach and you enjoy teaching (or you’re willing to push yourself a bit and put your gifts out there, nudge-nudge), this is one of the easiest ways to get new clients.

What’s unique about what I’ll show you here is that it’s a nature-based model for teaching and learning. It will give you the confidence to deliver an effective class, and have your students feel deeply held in a strong, interactive, inspiring container… that feels totally natural, and not awkward.